High school science project reaches Alzheimer’s patients

Elyse Doherty wondered if a whiff of cologne, an old melody or a faded photo might offer hope to Alzheimer’s patients where sophisticated pills have failed.

Rebecca Hyman

Elyse Doherty wondered if a whiff of cologne, an old melody or a faded photo might offer hope to Alzheimer’s patients where sophisticated pills have failed.

“The simple approach can be the best approach,” said the 17-year-old Taunton High School junior.

For her science project, “A Glimmer of Hope for Faded Minds,” Doherty set out to test her theory.

Working with six Alzheimer’s patients from the Guardian Center in Brockton and their families, Doherty created shadow boxes filled with significant objects from their pasts.
The idea was to stimulate all five of their senses. She included items such as a little jug of maple syrup for a woman who used to delight in making breakfast for her young children decades before.

Doherty spent four afternoons a week with the patients beginning in January, tenderly guiding them on a trip through the box of memories.

She asked their doctors to fill out standard questionnaires measuring their memory, contentment and nutrition levels before and after her project.

And all of the patients showed statistically significant improvement, so much so the Guardian Center is going to incorporate the shadow boxes into its treatment activities, Doherty said.

But she didn’t need the questionnaires to tell her she was on to something.

One man had been completely uncommunicative. He wouldn’t talk or look up until Doherty took out the shadow box.

In it, she’d placed an old rubber glove still reeking of oil from his days in the petroleum industry.

“When I took it out, his face lit up. He started talking about it, and now he’s talking,” Doherty said.

She said the patients’ memories seem to have improved even in areas unrelated to their pasts. Some of them eventually remembered her name and would remember in the afternoon what they’d done in the morning, she said.

Doherty’s project has garnered a lot of attention.

She placed fourth in Taunton High School’s science fair in February and first in the regional fair, where she was awarded a $20,000 scholarship to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

She was also offered a $50,000 scholarship to Wheaton College in Norton plus an additional $5,000 a year to conduct scientific research.

Doherty, who has not yet selected a college, placed third at the state science fair and was invited to represent Massachusetts at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta, Ga., earlier this month, where her project placed in the top 50 among hundreds of social science entries, said her mother, Patti Jo Doherty, a first-grade teacher at Chamberlain Elementary School.

Elyse Doherty said her goal is to be a doctor specializing in neurological research.
She realized that was her calling while shadowing some neurologists in a Brockton hospital, she said. She was touched by the plight of the patients with dementia and excited at the prospect of working on new treatments.

We know so little about dementia and can do so little for patients, she said. It’s a wide-open frontier, she said.

“There was one patient we’d see every day. To see that he couldn’t do anything for himself, right then and there I said, ‘This is what I want to do,’” Doherty said.

Doherty said she loves working with older people. Once, she brought her little brother along to the Guardian Center because the patients seem to find such joy in the company of children.

She was impressed with the quality of care at the Guardian Center but noticed the one thing missing from the patients’ lives is a lot of one-one-one interaction with other people.

“A lot of people just dismiss the fact old people need attention, too. I think they need the most attention,” Doherty said.